nekom:fuligin: Oh man, does payroll software suck ass. Our company recently hired on with a system called "Kronos" and basically, it's like they let a semi-sentient AI take over for scheduling, previously done well by a very competent human being. They were even told, "this will not work for some of your employees, due to their scheduling constraints". They went with it anyway.

That's why we still do everything in-house. On an ANCIENT system. It's actually a slightly more modern AS-400 but it's emulating a System/36. We've tested a few suites out but nothing seems to fit, so we're still running and maintaining 2 decade old custom software that began its life two companies ago. Still storing dates in the NON-Y2K compliant 2 digit form.

Another insanity: If they are desperately short they can call you in early for your shift and pay time and a half. If they are desperately short and no one wants to come in early they can NOT offer employees time and half to stay on after their shift because the payroll software cant figure out how to do that.

Moral: Don't buy out of the box business software if it doesn't fit your needs. They don't modify the code for you, only allow configuration to best match your business practices, but not every scenario can be conceivably covered(believe me, I work in public safety staffing and have in-depth knowledge of staffing and payroll softwares and their capabilities in comparison to actual staffing practices). Complaining that it doesn't 100% fit your business is ridiculous. Write your own or pay the massive amounts for them to build a one-off for you, or change your business practices.

Kraftwerk Orange:I was watching a news report about a NY family who lost their home during the storm. Mom and Dad, and three sons (all in their 30s) living in one home. All four men were full-time FDNY.

Granted, I sympathize with the loss of their home. That's what insurance is for. But my mind reeled at having FOUR full-time salaries going into one modest Brooklyn home, and I could only wonder where their paychecks went.

Matthew Keene:Kraftwerk Orange: I was watching a news report about a NY family who lost their home during the storm. Mom and Dad, and three sons (all in their 30s) living in one home. All four men were full-time FDNY.

Granted, I sympathize with the loss of their home. That's what insurance is for. But my mind reeled at having FOUR full-time salaries going into one modest Brooklyn home, and I could only wonder where their paychecks went.

Kit Fister:ArkAngel: With the average line worker making $38 per hour - and 11/2 times that in overtime - many live paycheck to paycheck, Hurley said, meaning any delay in the hard-earned cash hits families hard.

$76,000 a year before overtime and they're living paycheck to paycheck?

Get back to me when you have calculated the average cost of living for the families, and have reviewed all financial records and burdens of same so you can make that specious statement.

Specious?You're farking kidding me, right?Here in reality, half of US workers earn less than $35K per year.

There is no relationship between a lineman's ability to assume debt and/or living expenses and his income.That's like seeing a grotesquely obese person and saying his calorie requirements are dependent on how much he needs to eat. Don't they teach logic in schools any more?

A wage of $38 per hour puts these lineman in the upper 29 percent US incomes. And that's individual, not household. That's about $51,000 per year after taxes.With a BASE wage like that, it's hard times for those guys, for sure.

/And what about 80 hours of overtime on top of that base wage? That would come to about $3,009 per WEEK after taxes. Must be nice, that's all I can say.

Felgraf:Are they actually working 40 hour weeks? Is there always 40 hours of repair work that needs to be done in a week? I figure if something isn't busted, they don't get called out, so they don't get put on the clock.

They are in a union. yes, they work 40 hour weeks, minimum, and they get overtime. I know linemen that clear 100k a year because of the OT. I'm not saying these guys do, but, they make more than 76k.

The "paycheck to paycheck" line is being overreacted to, here on Fark. It is not necessarily true that any of these guys actually do that. The union rep, however, wants to suggest to the public that the evil and also feckless management is causing these heroic men to not be able to feed their children. Don't fall for it.

ArkAngel:With the average line worker making $38 per hour - and 11/2 times that in overtime - many live paycheck to paycheck, Hurley said, meaning any delay in the hard-earned cash hits families hard.

$76,000 a year before overtime and they're living paycheck to paycheck?

Sometimes linemen are called upon to travel on their dime to distant jobsites, where they arrange for their own food and lodging. They are partially reimbursed most of the time. They also purchase their own work clothes and personal tools. Also sometimes people have families to support.

hockeyfarker:The union rep, however, wants to suggest to the public that the evil and also feckless management is causing these heroic men to not be able to feed their children. Don't fall for it.

This.It sucks to not get paid what's due. And these guys work harder than most of us could imagine to keep us living in post-1907 living conditions and they risk their lives to do it. Far as I'm concerned, these folks deserve what they get for the value they bring.But they're not hurting.

ThighsofGlory:ArkAngel: With the average line worker making $38 per hour - and 11/2 times that in overtime - many live paycheck to paycheck, Hurley said, meaning any delay in the hard-earned cash hits families hard.

$76,000 a year before overtime and they're living paycheck to paycheck?

Sometimes linemen are called upon to travel on their dime to distant jobsites, where they arrange for their own food and lodging. They are partially reimbursed most of the time. They also purchase their own work clothes and personal tools. Also sometimes people have families to support.

I covered our company's chemist during his vacation, along with my own shift afterward. I had 6 hours between shifts for two weeks. The company's vice president gave me my paycheck, personally. He then told me, he had to intervene with payroll to get it done. They figured out how many hours I had off a day, and had major issues with it . He told me, I would never be asked to do that again, and thanked me for my hardwork. He also told me they split the OT hours up, between two checks because the taxes would have robbed me of all the money I had earned.

I lost one full week of regular pay to taxes. From that point on, I never worked more than 20 hours of OT, because at some point you're working for free. I've done 28 hours straight at one job, and 38 hours straight while formatting a slide/notepage presentation to be presented to M.S.

Don't question the hardworkers, and give them their pay. You'll need them again.

DingleberryMoose:ArkAngel: With the average line worker making $38 per hour - and 11/2 times that in overtime - many live paycheck to paycheck, Hurley said, meaning any delay in the hard-earned cash hits families hard.

$76,000 a year before overtime and they're living paycheck to paycheck?

It isn't the income, it's the outgo. Poor folks have poor ways, and income level doesn't matter.

How do you know they work full time year round? Maybe they average 20 hours/week? That would not be out of the ordinary.

missiv:I lost one full week of regular pay to taxes. From that point on, I never worked more than 20 hours of OT, because at some point you're working for free. I've done 28 hours straight at one job, and 38 hours straight while formatting a slide/notepage presentation to be presented to M.S.

At least if you get overtaxed like crazy for a couple weeks because of OT you'll get most of it back on your tax return, when it turns out you weren't actually making tons of money by working 6000 hours that year.

HR software is literally written by monkeys, and the people who administer it are not much better.

I'll take anything over shiftplanning and their continual 'upgrades' that break crap. Watched as our timecards magically began rounding to :15, watched as the system went down (can't punch in 'cause it's in the cloud!) with no warning, started begging us to add 'shifts' to our cards, just overall turned to crap.

That was the real deal breaker for us. The off the shelf system we had would have worked IF people weren't absolutely unwilling to change how things go here. Which is fine by me, as my job security is about as high as I can imagine it being as long as I'm the only one able to care for our lumbering dinosaur of a mainframe. Good luck finding anyone else who knows System/36 basic, or even how to run the thing.

FitzShivering:I also would like to guess SAP. Though be fair, almost all payroll software sucks.

People complain about the software when really it is the people using it. When it's configured they set up all kinds of business rules to setup conditions where OT kicks in, maximum working hours, etc. Then they go and throw all of those out the window a few times every year and get pissed off because the system gives them trouble when they do it. Business software doesn't like arbitrary, it likes rules, that's how it is supposed to save you time. When you spend a bunch of time overriding your own rules and creating arbitrary, your software is going to give you fits.

bhcompy:FitzShivering: I also would like to guess SAP. Though be fair, almost all payroll software sucks.

People complain about the software when really it is the people using it. When it's configured they set up all kinds of business rules to setup conditions where OT kicks in, maximum working hours, etc. Then they go and throw all of those out the window a few times every year and get pissed off because the system gives them trouble when they do it. Business software doesn't like arbitrary, it likes rules, that's how it is supposed to save you time. When you spend a bunch of time overriding your own rules and creating arbitrary, your software is going to give you fits.

I've spent a lot of time cleaning up after people who say things like you do. The fact is that businesses, even large ones, tend to be arbitrary, and have a need to violate their "rules" on a regular basis. When you set up a system on fixed rules that don't meet all business conditions, you've set up a failed system, and it isn't the "people using it."

I used to direct a union workforce and their rules were:First 7.5 hrs = straight timeNext 4.0 hrs = time and one halfAnything after the 3.7 hrs OT = double timePay rate was $34.50 / hr.Overtime was mandatory and most of the folks made 120K + a year.And everyone of them lived up to their last dime.We used SAP and it sucked.

fuligin:Oh man, does payroll software suck ass. Our company recently hired on with a system called "Kronos" and basically, it's like they let a semi-sentient AI take over for scheduling, previously done well by a very competent human being. They were even told, "this will not work for some of your employees, due to their scheduling constraints". They went with it anyway.

I have done payroll on Kronos. It used to take my entire Wednesdays to make sure everything was accurate.

jtown:It's a glitch regarding overtime, not base pay. A delay in getting overtime pay is an annoyance. It's not going to put anyone out on the street unless they were already thoroughly farked.

The situation reminds me of a coworker who had a "100% flex time" schedule. He'd basically come and go whenever. He might be in from 6am to 11am, leave for 4 hours, then come back from 3pm to 5pm, then go run an errand and work from 6pm to 8pm. The gal that did payroll hated it because she never knew when to start a day and when to end it. And the guy couldn't remember whether his 3am-6am block from last week was a carryover from the day before or a really early start to a new day.

The obvious solution would have been to switch him to salary but they wouldn't offer enough to compensate for the lost overtime. The company was notoriously bad about low-balling salaries. Any time someone switched, they regretted it.

No, the obvious solution was to put him and every other salary guy on data entry system. Most are done with swipe cards now a days. You swipe in with beginning of tour, swipe out for lunch, swipe in from lunch and swipe out with end of tour.

I've spent a lot of time cleaning up after people who say things like you do. The fact is that businesses, even large ones, tend to be arbitrary, and have a need to violate their "rules" on a regular basis. When you set up a system on fixed rules that don't meet all business conditions, you've set up a failed system, and it isn't the "people using it."

that is a problem with the people that set the business rules In the first place, then, and that is done by the purchasing party either directly(direct configuration) or by proxy(filling in questionnaires and the provider doing the configuration). From experience, the problem almost invariably is "oh we forgot about x scenario when the scoping was done". I'm involved in a scenario right now where it was established firmly that all accrual grants were done upfront at fiscal new year, except now they forgot to mention that people that have anniversary dates that grant them higher accrual ratios get the bonus benefit granted on their anniversary date. The system they're using wasn't implemented in such a fashion and requires a great deal of work to reconfigure to do that in an automated fashion. Would have not been a problem from a time or cost perspective if it was mentioned up front, and it's no fault of the software vendor despite the customer being unhappy with the software as a result

goobergal:fuligin: Oh man, does payroll software suck ass. Our company recently hired on with a system called "Kronos" and basically, it's like they let a semi-sentient AI take over for scheduling, previously done well by a very competent human being. They were even told, "this will not work for some of your employees, due to their scheduling constraints". They went with it anyway.

I have done payroll on Kronos. It used to take my entire Wednesdays to make sure everything was accurate.

hmm...nice to see it's not just us that hates that God awful software.

Anyone have any idea why their company went with Kronos? I'm fairly certain mine went with it on a recommendation from the idiot that runs the PeopleSoft application.

As crappy as it is, I have to wonder if they are paying people under the table to take it.

Slaves2Darkness:jtown: It's a glitch regarding overtime, not base pay. A delay in getting overtime pay is an annoyance. It's not going to put anyone out on the street unless they were already thoroughly farked.

The situation reminds me of a coworker who had a "100% flex time" schedule. He'd basically come and go whenever. He might be in from 6am to 11am, leave for 4 hours, then come back from 3pm to 5pm, then go run an errand and work from 6pm to 8pm. The gal that did payroll hated it because she never knew when to start a day and when to end it. And the guy couldn't remember whether his 3am-6am block from last week was a carryover from the day before or a really early start to a new day.

The obvious solution would have been to switch him to salary but they wouldn't offer enough to compensate for the lost overtime. The company was notoriously bad about low-balling salaries. Any time someone switched, they regretted it.

No, the obvious solution was to put him and every other salary guy on data entry system. Most are done with swipe cards now a days. You swipe in with beginning of tour, swipe out for lunch, swipe in from lunch and swipe out with end of tour.

You missed the point. If he worked from 11am to 5pm then 9pm 11pm then 1am to 4am then 12pm to 6pm, where does one day end and the next day start? Seems pretty clear to a human that day 1 is 11am to 4am and day 2 is 12pm to 6pm. So day 1 is 11 hours. 8 hours at RT, 2 hours at OT, 1 hour at DT and day 2 is 6 hours of RT. But, if you call midnight the cutoff, day 1 drops to 8 hours and day 2 gets bumped to 9 hours.

Depending on how the days are sliced, he could lose out on 1 hour of overtime and 1 hour of doubletime. (We got paid double after 2 hours of OT.)

Krieghund:TheSelphie: Krieghund: 76k is a nice paycheck in Wisconsin, but it won't get you very far in Boston.

Heh, my husband makes about that, and I make a fair bit less than that. Once we pay off the house in about five years (trying to pay it down as fast as possible), we'd probably be fine on half of $76k here a few miles out of Boston. Budgeting and spending below your means.

Yes, exactly. $76,000 plus a whole additional income is what you need to live in metro Boston.Up to the point where your house is paid for, then you can get by on less.

$76k/yr is a little more than $6000 per month, before taxes. if you figure 20%-25% total in fed,State, and local taxes, that still leaves about $5k take-home. The only way you could be "living paycheck-to-paycheck" would be if you were spending $3000/mo just on rent or a mortgage, then blowing the rest on dining out every other night, a 500-channel HD Sports Package, buying/leasing new cars every year, and have several recreational vehicles.

And trust me, if you have all those luxuries, you are hardly living paycheck-to-paycheck.

missiv:I covered our company's chemist during his vacation, along with my own shift afterward. I had 6 hours between shifts for two weeks. The company's vice president gave me my paycheck, personally. He then told me, he had to intervene with payroll to get it done. They figured out how many hours I had off a day, and had major issues with it . He told me, I would never be asked to do that again, and thanked me for my hardwork. He also told me they split the OT hours up, between two checks because the taxes would have robbed me of all the money I had earned.

I lost one full week of regular pay to taxes. From that point on, I never worked more than 20 hours of OT, because at some point you're working for free. I've done 28 hours straight at one job, and 38 hours straight while formatting a slide/notepage presentation to be presented to M.S.

Don't question the hardworkers, and give them their pay. You'll need them again.

IANATP but I'm pretty sure it's impossible to end up working for free because of tax. Perhaps your company is stupid about how much they withhold, but at the end of the year you would never end up owing more in tax than you had grossed.

People say stuff like this sometimes and I really burns my bacon. The US enjoys one of the lowest tax rates in the first world and yet still everyone thinks they're paying obscene amounts of tax. Perhaps this is why you're so deeply in debt.

Overtime pay? WTF is that?. Work for salary and get farked out of it all the time. Sure I might get some comp time the next week, but would much much rather get the time and a half.I have zero incentive to do anything above and beyond the bare minimum required out of me.

Loreweaver:Krieghund: TheSelphie: Krieghund: 76k is a nice paycheck in Wisconsin, but it won't get you very far in Boston.

Heh, my husband makes about that, and I make a fair bit less than that. Once we pay off the house in about five years (trying to pay it down as fast as possible), we'd probably be fine on half of $76k here a few miles out of Boston. Budgeting and spending below your means.

Yes, exactly. $76,000 plus a whole additional income is what you need to live in metro Boston.Up to the point where your house is paid for, then you can get by on less.

$76k/yr is a little more than $6000 per month, before taxes. if you figure 20%-25% total in fed,State, and local taxes, that still leaves about $5k take-home. The only way you could be "living paycheck-to-paycheck" would be if you were spending $3000/mo just on rent or a mortgage, then blowing the rest on dining out every other night, a 500-channel HD Sports Package, buying/leasing new cars every year, and have several recreational vehicles.

And trust me, if you have all those luxuries, you are hardly living paycheck-to-paycheck.

God forbid you have something like kids, college tuition/loans, health problems, etc.

bhcompy:Loreweaver: Krieghund: TheSelphie: Krieghund: 76k is a nice paycheck in Wisconsin, but it won't get you very far in Boston.

Heh, my husband makes about that, and I make a fair bit less than that. Once we pay off the house in about five years (trying to pay it down as fast as possible), we'd probably be fine on half of $76k here a few miles out of Boston. Budgeting and spending below your means.

Yes, exactly. $76,000 plus a whole additional income is what you need to live in metro Boston.Up to the point where your house is paid for, then you can get by on less.

$76k/yr is a little more than $6000 per month, before taxes. if you figure 20%-25% total in fed,State, and local taxes, that still leaves about $5k take-home. The only way you could be "living paycheck-to-paycheck" would be if you were spending $3000/mo just on rent or a mortgage, then blowing the rest on dining out every other night, a 500-channel HD Sports Package, buying/leasing new cars every year, and have several recreational vehicles.

And trust me, if you have all those luxuries, you are hardly living paycheck-to-paycheck.

God forbid you have something like kids, college tuition/loans, health problems, etc.

Given that it's more than twice what the Commonwealth of Massachusetts says is a minimum wage for a human to live off of, even if they work 80 hours 52 weeks a year ($8*80*52=$33,280), I'm not buying the poverty plea.

The Union agreement states that union employees can only work 16 hours per day max even in emergencies. Therefore the utilities payroll computer system was set to kickback any timesheet that had more than 16 hours per day on it for union employees.

The 16 hour rule was waived for the Sandy emergency; however the payroll computer was still rejecting overtime days that were over 16 hours. This is just a minor technology glitch that I am sure will be resolved quickly and the linemen will be appropriately compensated for their long hours.

ThatGuyFromTheInternet:bhcompy: Loreweaver: Krieghund: TheSelphie: Krieghund: 76k is a nice paycheck in Wisconsin, but it won't get you very far in Boston.

Heh, my husband makes about that, and I make a fair bit less than that. Once we pay off the house in about five years (trying to pay it down as fast as possible), we'd probably be fine on half of $76k here a few miles out of Boston. Budgeting and spending below your means.

Yes, exactly. $76,000 plus a whole additional income is what you need to live in metro Boston.Up to the point where your house is paid for, then you can get by on less.

$76k/yr is a little more than $6000 per month, before taxes. if you figure 20%-25% total in fed,State, and local taxes, that still leaves about $5k take-home. The only way you could be "living paycheck-to-paycheck" would be if you were spending $3000/mo just on rent or a mortgage, then blowing the rest on dining out every other night, a 500-channel HD Sports Package, buying/leasing new cars every year, and have several recreational vehicles.

And trust me, if you have all those luxuries, you are hardly living paycheck-to-paycheck.

God forbid you have something like kids, college tuition/loans, health problems, etc.

Given that it's more than twice what the Commonwealth of Massachusetts says is a minimum wage for a human to live off of, even if they work 80 hours 52 weeks a year ($8*80*52=$33,280), I'm not buying the poverty plea.

Poverty is different than paycheck-to-paycheck. If these guys' budgets are built around the idea of a paycheck every two weeks and then a paycheck doesn't come, they might be a little bit farked that week. Yeah, they hopefully have savings for something like this, but they might not. One paycheck might be for monthly expenses and the other for mortgage. Suddenly the mortgage payment isn't in your account and you have to scramble to make sure the check doesn't bounce. And if you're making the money while mom stays home with three kids, $38/hr still isn't living large.

It's not poverty, but it's not necessarily without problems if a check doesn't come through.

I_Hate_Iowa:ThatGuyFromTheInternet: bhcompy: Loreweaver: Krieghund: TheSelphie: Krieghund: 76k is a nice paycheck in Wisconsin, but it won't get you very far in Boston.

Heh, my husband makes about that, and I make a fair bit less than that. Once we pay off the house in about five years (trying to pay it down as fast as possible), we'd probably be fine on half of $76k here a few miles out of Boston. Budgeting and spending below your means.

Yes, exactly. $76,000 plus a whole additional income is what you need to live in metro Boston.Up to the point where your house is paid for, then you can get by on less.

$76k/yr is a little more than $6000 per month, before taxes. if you figure 20%-25% total in fed,State, and local taxes, that still leaves about $5k take-home. The only way you could be "living paycheck-to-paycheck" would be if you were spending $3000/mo just on rent or a mortgage, then blowing the rest on dining out every other night, a 500-channel HD Sports Package, buying/leasing new cars every year, and have several recreational vehicles.

And trust me, if you have all those luxuries, you are hardly living paycheck-to-paycheck.

God forbid you have something like kids, college tuition/loans, health problems, etc.

Given that it's more than twice what the Commonwealth of Massachusetts says is a minimum wage for a human to live off of, even if they work 80 hours 52 weeks a year ($8*80*52=$33,280), I'm not buying the poverty plea.

Poverty is different than paycheck-to-paycheck. If these guys' budgets are built around the idea of a paycheck every two weeks and then a paycheck doesn't come, they might be a little bit farked that week. Yeah, they hopefully have savings for something like this, but they might not. One paycheck might be for monthly expenses and the other for mortgage. Suddenly the mortgage payment isn't in your account and you have to scramble to make sure the check doesn't bounce. And if you're making the money while mom stays home with three kids, $38/hr ...

TFA says it's just the OT that got held up, not the base pay they'd hopefully be budgeting for.

I_Hate_Iowa:ThatGuyFromTheInternet: bhcompy: Loreweaver: Krieghund: TheSelphie: Krieghund: 76k is a nice paycheck in Wisconsin, but it won't get you very far in Boston.

Heh, my husband makes about that, and I make a fair bit less than that. Once we pay off the house in about five years (trying to pay it down as fast as possible), we'd probably be fine on half of $76k here a few miles out of Boston. Budgeting and spending below your means.

Yes, exactly. $76,000 plus a whole additional income is what you need to live in metro Boston.Up to the point where your house is paid for, then you can get by on less.

$76k/yr is a little more than $6000 per month, before taxes. if you figure 20%-25% total in fed,State, and local taxes, that still leaves about $5k take-home. The only way you could be "living paycheck-to-paycheck" would be if you were spending $3000/mo just on rent or a mortgage, then blowing the rest on dining out every other night, a 500-channel HD Sports Package, buying/leasing new cars every year, and have several recreational vehicles.

And trust me, if you have all those luxuries, you are hardly living paycheck-to-paycheck.

God forbid you have something like kids, college tuition/loans, health problems, etc.

Given that it's more than twice what the Commonwealth of Massachusetts says is a minimum wage for a human to live off of, even if they work 80 hours 52 weeks a year ($8*80*52=$33,280), I'm not buying the poverty plea.

Poverty is different than paycheck-to-paycheck. If these guys' budgets are built around the idea of a paycheck every two weeks and then a paycheck doesn't come, they might be a little bit farked that week. Yeah, they hopefully have savings for something like this, but they might not. One paycheck might be for monthly expenses and the other for mortgage. Suddenly the mortgage payment isn't in your account and you have to scramble to make sure the check doesn't bounce. And if you're making the money while mom stays home with three kids, $38/hr ...

The point is, people who don't know how to handle their money should work for free.

Ha, reminds me of a former job. I put in big hours to push through a project my boss said we had to complete (and we had to, it was ship that was leaving). I worked something like 240 hours over two weeks and got it done. Then on payday, there was a big meeting where we were all told that the company was having financial trouble. I look at my pay stub and only got paid for 60 hours for 2 weeks! Not only did I get stiffed for my OT, but I didn't even get paid straight time. I think I yelled "Are you f*ing kidding me?" in the middle of the meeting and stomped out (I was so angry it's kind of blurry). My boss came up to my office and said it was an honest mistake, which I replied "Bullshiat!" On top of that, my expenses check for that job didn't come until I threatened to go to the Labor Department and also file a suit in small claims (our state allows something like triple damages for cases like that).